[update, reference sheet is now linked at the bottom of post]
By Angus McFarlane,
There was an overwhelming scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headinginto a period of significant cooling. The possibility of anthropogenic warming was relegated to a minority of the papers in the peer-reviewed literature.
Introduction
Whether or not there was a global cooling consensus in the 1970s is important in climate science because, if there were a cooling consensus (which subsequently proved to be wrong) then it would question the legitimacy of consensus in science. In particular, the validity of the 93% consensus on global warming alleged by Cook et al (2103) would be implausible. That is, if consensus climate scientists were wrong in the 1970s then they could be wrong now.
Purpose of Review
It is not the purpose of this review to question the rights or wrongs of the methodology of the 93% consensus. For-and-against arguments are presented in several peer-reviewed papers and non-peer-reviewed weblogs. The purpose of this review is to establish if there were a consensus in the 1970s and, if so, was this consensus cooling or warming?
In their 2008 paper, The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus, Peterson, Connolley and Fleck (hereinafter PCF-08) state that, “There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.” This conclusion intrigued me because, when I was growing up in the early 1970s, it was my perception that global cooling dominated the climate narrative. My interest was further piqued by allegations of “cover-up” and “skulduggery” in 2016 in NoTricksZone and Breitbart.
Therefore, I present a review that examines the accuracy of the PCF-08 claim that 1970s global cooling consensus was a myth. This review concentrates on the results from the data in the peer-reviewed climate science literature published in the 1970s, i.e., using similar sources to those used by PCF-08.
Review of PCF-08 Cooling Myth Paper
The case for the 1970s cooling consensus being a myth relies solely on PCF-08. They state that,”…the following pervasive myth arose: there was a consensus among climate scientists of the 1970s that either global cooling or a full-fledged ice age was imminent…A review of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979 shows this myth to be false. The myth’s basis lies in a selective misreading of the texts both by some members of the media at the time and by some observers today. In fact, emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then.” [Emphasis added].
PCF-08 reached their conclusion by conducting a literature review of the electronic archives of the American Meteorological Society, Nature and the scholarly journal archive Journal Storage (JSTOR). The search period was from 1965 to 1979 and the search terms used were “global warming”, “global cooling” and a variety of “other less directly relevant” search terms. Additionally, PCF-08 evaluated references mentioned in the searched papers and references mentioned in various history-of-science documents.
In total, PCF-08 reviewed 71 papers and their survey found 7 cooling papers, 20 neutral papers and 44 warming papers. Their results are shown in their Figure 1.
A cursory examination of Figure 1 indicates that there is a 62% warming consensus if we use all the data and this consensus increases to 86% pro-warming, if we were to ignore the neutral papers (as was done in the 93% consensus). Therefore, the Figure 1 data seems to prove the contention in PCF-08 that 1970s global cooling was a myth.
However, I find it difficult to believe that the 1970s media “selectively misread” the scientific consensus of the day and promoted a non-existent cooling scare. Therefore, I present an alternative to the PCF-08 analysis below.
Methodology of this Review
In this review, I use an identical methodology to PCF-08, i.e., I examine peer-reviewed scientific journals. Non-peer-reviewed newspaper and magazine articles are not used. A significantly larger number of papers are presented in the current review than were used in PCF-08.
The PCF-08 database of articles is used but this is extended to examine more literature. Note that examining all of the scientific literature would have been beyond my resources. However, my literature survey was facilitated by the work of Kenneth Richard in 2016 (hereinafter, KR-16) at NoTricksZone, in which he has assembled a large database of sceptical peer-reviewed literature.
Some people may wish to ignore the KR-16 database as being from a so-called “climate denier” blog. However, almost all of the papers in KR-16 are from peer-reviewed literature and consequently it is a valid database. It is also worth noting that 16 of the papers used in the KR-16 database are also contained in the PCF-08 database.
The combined PCF-08 and KR-16 databases form the benchmark database for the current review. It was intended to significantly extend the benchmark database but, on searching the relevant journals, only 2 additional papers were found and these were added to form the database for this review.
It should be noted that KR-16 states that there were over 285 cooling papers. However, many of these papers were deleted from the current review as not being relevant. For example, several papers were either outside the 1965-1979 reference period or they emphasise the minor role of CO2 but do not consider climate trends.
I agree with PCF-08 that no literature search can be 100% complete. I also agree that a literature search offers a reasonable test of the hypothesis that there was a scientific consensus in the 1970s. I reiterate that the resulting database used in this review is significantly larger than that used by PCF-08 and consequently it should offer a more accurate test of the scientific consensus in the 1970s.
Most of the papers in the review database acknowledge the global cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s (typically 0.3 °C global cooling). Therefore, deciding between cooling, neutral or warming was relatively straightforward in most cases; namely did the paper expect the climate regime during the 1940s-1960s period to either to continue from the date that the paper was published, or did it expect a different climate regime in the medium-to-long-term?
Notwithstanding the straightforward test described above, some of the papers make contradictory statements and are thus more difficult to classify. Consequently, their classification can include an element of subjectivity. Fortunately, there are very few papers in this category and consequently an inappropriate classification does not materially affect the overall results.
The test criteria are summarised in Table 1.
| Classification | Test of Classification of Papers | Typical Examples from Papers |
| Cooling | Cooling expected to either continue or initiate | Kukla & Kukla (1972)
“…the prognosis is for a long-lasting global cooling more severe than any experienced hitherto by civilized mankind.” |
| Neutral | Either non-committal on future climate change or expects warming or cooling to be equally possible | Sellers (1969)
“The major conclusions that removing the arctic ice cap would have less effect on climate than previously suggested, that a decrease of the solar constant by 2-5% would be sufficient, to initiate another ice age, and that man’s increasing industrial activities may eventually lead to the elimination of the ice caps and to a climate about 14C warmer than today…” |
| Warming | Warming expected to either continue or initiate | Manabe & Weatherald (1967)
“According to our estimate, a doubling of the CO, content in the atmosphere has the effect of raising the temperature of the atmosphere (whose relative humidity is fixed) by about 2C.” |
Table 1: Summary of Classification System for Papers
The search terms “global cooling” and “global warming” used by PCF-08 are used in this review but they have been expanded to include “cool”, “warm”, “aerosol” and “ice-age” because these, more general terms, return a larger number of relevant papers. Additional search terms such as “deterioration”, “detrimental” and “severe” have also been included. These would fit into the PCF-08 category of “other less directly relevant” search terms.
Several of the papers in the database are concerned about the effects of aerosol cooling and they state that this effect dominates the effect of the newly emerging CO2-warming science. Indeed, a few papers warn of CO2 cooling.
However, PCF-08 do not include any papers that refer to aerosol cooling by a future fleet of supersonic aircraft (SST’s) but several papers in the 1970s assumed an SST fleet of 500 aircraft. This seems incongruous now but, to show that this number of aircraft is not unrealistic; Emirates Airlines currently have a fleet of 244 (non-supersonic) aircraft and 262 more on order. Therefore, I have included papers that refer to the effects of aerosols from supersonic aircraft and other human activities. Of course, supersonic travel was killed-off by the mid-1970s oil crisis.
Furthermore, a number of PCF-08 and KR-16 papers were re-classified (from cooling, neutral or warming) as summarised Table 2.
| Reference | Original | Amended |
| Sellers (1969) | Warming | Neutral |
| Benton (1970) | Warming | Neutral |
| Rasool and Schneider (1972) | Neutral | Cooling |
| Machta (1972) | Warming | Neutral |
| FCSTICAS (1974) | Warming | Cooling |
| National Academy of Sciences (1975) | Neutral | Cooling |
| Thompson, 1975 | Warming | Neutral |
| Shaw (1976) | Neutral | Cooling |
| Bryson and Dittberner (1977) | Neutral | Cooling |
| Barrett, 1978 | Neutral | Cooling |
| Ohring and Adler (1978) | Warming | Neutral |
| Stuiver (1978) | Warming | Neutral |
| Sagan et al. (1979) | Neutral | Cooling |
| Choudhury and Kukla, 1979 | Neutral | Cooling |
| a. Amended Classifications to PCF-08 | ||
| Reference | Original | Amended |
| Budyko, 1969 | Cooling | Warming |
| Benton (1970) | Cooling | Neutral |
| Mitchell, 1970 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Mitchell (1971) | Cooling | Warming |
| Richmond, 1972 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Denton and Karlén, 1973 | Cooling | Warming |
| Schneider and Dickinson, 1974 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Moran, 1974 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Ellsaesser, 1975 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Thompson, 1975 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Gates, 1976 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Zirin et al., 1976 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Bach, 1976 | Cooling | Warming |
| Norwine, 1977 | Cooling | Warming |
| Paterson, 1977 | Cooling | Neutral |
| Schneider, 1978 | Cooling | Warming |
| b. Amended Classifications to KR-16 |
Table 2: Amendments to Classification of Papers in Database
Two examples of the amendments to the classification of the papers in the database are explained below:
1. The Benton (1970) paper is classified as “Cooling” in KR-16 but the paper states that, “In the period from 1880 to 1940, the mean temperature of the earth increased about 0.60C; from 1940 to 1970, it decreased by 0.3-0.4°C…The present rate of increase of 0.7 ppm per year [of CO2] would therefore (if extrapolated to 2000 A.D.) result in a warming of about 0.60C – a very substantial change…The drop in the earth’s temperature since 1940 has been paralleled by a substantial increase in natural volcanism. The effect of such volcanic activity is probably greater than the effect of manmade pollutants… it is essential that scientists understand thoroughly the dynamics of climate.” [Emphasis added]. Consequently, this paper is re-classified as neutral in this review. Not the “Cooling” classification in KR-16 and not the “Warming” the classification in PCF-08).
2. The Sagan et al. (1979) paper is classified as “Neutral” in PCF-08 but the paper states that, “Observations show that since 1940 the global mean temperature has declined by -0.2 K…Extrapolation of present rates of change of land use suggests a further decline of -1 K in the global temperature by the end of the next century, at least partially compensating for the increase in global temperature through the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect, anticipated from the continued burning of fossil fuels.” [Emphasis added]. Therefore, this paper is re-classified as cooling in this review (conforming to the KR-16 classification).
Results from Review & Discussion
The review database contains a total 190 relevant papers, which is 2.7 times the size of the PCF-08 database. Of the 190 papers in the review database, 162 full papers/books and 25 abstracts were reviewed (abstracts were used when the full papers were either pay-walled or could not be sourced). Furthermore, 4 warming papers from PCF-08 were not reviewed because they could not be sourced. Therefore, the PCF-08 classification was used for these papers in this review.
The results from the review are summarised in Figure 2.
It is evident from Figure 2 that, for the 1965-1979 reference period used by PCF-08, the number of cooling papers significantly outnumbers the number of warming papers. It is also apparent that there are two distinct sub-periods contained within the reference period, namely:
1. The 1968-1976 period when cooling papers greatly outnumber the warming papers (85% to 15%), if we ignore the neutral papers (as was done in the Cook et al (2103). The 85% to 15% majority is an overwhelming cooling consensus. Additionally, this is probably the period when the 1970s “global cooling consensus” originated because cooling was clearly an established scientific consensus – not the myth that PCF-08 contend.
2. The 1977-1979 period when warming papers slightly outnumber the cooling papers (52% to 48%) – a warming majority but not a consensus.
The following observations are also worth noting from Figure 2 for the 1965-1979 reference period:
1. Of the 190 papers in the database, the respective number of papers are 86 cooling, 58 neutral and 46 warming. In percentage terms, this equates to 45% cooling papers, 31% neutral papers and 24% warming papers, if we use all of the data.
2. The cooling consensus increases to 65% compared with 35% warming – a considerable cooling consensus, if we ignore the neutral papers (as was done in the Cook et al (2103).
3. The total number of cooling papers is always greater than or equal to the number of warming papers throughout the entire reference period.
Although not presented in Figure 2, it is worth noting that 30 papers refer to the possibility of a New Ice-Age or the return to the “Little Ace-Age” (although they sometimes they used the term “Climate Catastrophic Cooling”). Timescales for the New Ice Age vary from a few decades, through a century or two, to several millennia. The 30 “New Ice Age” papers are not insignificant when compared with the 46 warming papers.
Conclusions
A review of the climate science literature of the 1965-1979 period is presented and it is shown that there was an overwhelming scientific consensus for climate cooling (typically, 65% for the whole period) but greatly outnumbering the warming papers by more than 5-to-1 during the 1968-1976 period, when there were 85% cooling papers compared with 15% warming.
It is evident that the conclusion of the PCF-08 paper, The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus, is incorrect. The current review shows the opposite conclusion to be more accurate. Namely, the 1970s global cooling consensus was not a myth – the overwhelming scientific consensus was for climate cooling.
It appears that the PCF-08 authors have committed the transgression of which they accuse others; namely, “selectively misreading the texts” of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979. The PCF-08 authors appear to have done this by neglecting the large number of peer-reviewed papers that were pro-cooling.
I find it very surprising that PCF-08 only uncovered 7 cooling papers and did not uncover the 86 cooling papers in major scientific journals, such as, Journal of American Meteorological Society, Nature, Science, Quaternary Research and similar scientific papers that they reviewed. For example, PCF-08 only found 1 paper in Quaternary Research, namely the warming paper by Mitchell (1976), however, this review found 19 additional papers in that journal, comprising 15 cooling, 3 neutral and 1 warming.
I can only suggest that the authors of PCF-08 concentrated on finding warming papers instead of conducting the impartial “rigorous literature review” that they profess.
If the current climate science debate were more neutral, the PCF-08 paper would either be withdrawn or subjected to a detailed corrigendum to correct its obvious inaccuracies.
Afterword
I reiterate that no literature survey can be 100% complete. Therefore, if you uncover additional references then please send them to me in the comments. It would make this review much better if we could significantly increase the number of relevant references.
Additionally, if you disagree with the classification of some of the references then please let me know why you disagree and I will consider appropriate amendments. Your comments on classification would certainly increase the veracity of the review by providing an independent assessment of my classifications.
References
The references used in this review and their classification are included in the spreadsheet here:
References-Global Cooling Consensus.xlsx
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This is just nonsense. Unless there is a stated criteria for how the database of global cooling papers
was collated it doesn’t prove a thing. Peterson et al. describe how they found their papers whereas
Kenneth Richard does not. Furthermore many of the papers Mr Richard describes as cooling papers
should be counted as warming papers – or at least neutral. Dyson’s paper “CAN WE CONTROL THE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE?” being a prime example it looks at how to reduce the amount of
CO2 in the atmosphere should it become necessary. The implication is that rising CO2 levels
are a potential danger because of the greenhouse effect and that humans should look at ways to reduce
CO2 emission. This would appear to be a clear warming paper or at best neutral and not a cooling paper.
Nor is there any evidence that Mr. Richard went looking for additional warming papers which would be
necessary for an unbiased estimate.
Plus many others would not count — for example Gribbin 1975 is a nature comment piece not a peer
reviewed journal article. Plus others are outside the timespan investigated by Peterson.
Incidentally typing “global warming” into google scholar and setting the dates range between 1965 and 1979 returns 1260 results. In contrast “global cooling” returns 283 results. Which is a very crude way of suggesting that only 22% of the literature was predicting global cooling in contrast to 78% predicting global warming.
So the consensus even in the 70s was for global warming.
…Google ?…. ROTFLMAO…..
Why don’t you write an article, Percy?
Charles might not post it, but I’m sure that Wikipedia will be happy to get it.
There is little point writing an article. The point I want to make is that you cannot
combine an unbiased list and a biased one to get a bigger unbiased sample. If for
example you had a list of 100 randomly selected citizens of the USA and combined that
with a list of 300 registered democrats nobody would expect that you would have an representative
sample of US voters. Which is precisely what is happening here. Peterson et al look at both
warming and cooling papers while Richard looked at only cooling papers. It makes no sense
to combine the lists.
Who says I wouldn’t post it?
Google of course being neutral
Feel free to use whatever database of scientific papers you like (Scopus, ISI etc)
but you need to define your search terms. I used google scholar because it is
freely available (i.e. not behind a pay wall) so anyone can check my results. I
have also stated what search terms I used so again the results should be reproducible.
Google no doubt has a bias in how it ranks the results but since I only counted the
number of hits that is irrelevant.
In contrast “global cooling” returns 283 results
“Climatic cooling” for the same date range returns 9,800 results.
Your premise is rather unscientific, common terms in use today are not the same as they were then for the same issues. Climatic warming only produced 3,020 results….
I have never claimed my premise was scientific. I was just pointing out the flaws in the
article. And incidentally when I type “climatic cooling” into scholar.google.com I only
get 382 matches between the years 1965 and 1980. Which is significantly less than 9800.
So I am curious to know exactly what you searched for and how.
Funny, I just tried
“climatic cooling” into scholar.google.com
and got “About 874,000 results (0.07 sec)” or “About 10,100 results (0.73 sec)” (depending on if I tossed quotes around the phrase in the search bar). either way it a far cry from the 382 matches you claim.
“ice age” (with quotes) comes in at About 8,660 results (0.09 sec)
Correction, just tried it again (apparently the date search is a bit fiddly)
without quotes climatic cooling is About 17,000 results (0.27 sec)
with quotes “climatic cooling” is About 435 results (0.02 sec)
compared to
without quotes climatic warming is About 6,550 results (0.07 sec)
with quotes “climatic warming” is About 452 results (0.07 sec)
Problem with this approach is that you have no way of filtering out duplicate references.
For instance, a “hit” may include an article that does noting more more than reference another article that meets the search criteria, independent of the reference being pro or con to the assertions of the main article.
These alarmists want us to be alarmed regardless of what the weather/climate is actually doing!
That’s why I give them zero credibility.
How much do the particulates in the air at the time coupled with the lower solar energy output contribute to the temperature reduction?
There were several novels written during that period describing life on a frozen planet. There definitely was a consensus that global cooling was occurring.
An example was “A Creed for the Third Millenium” by Colleen Mc Cullogh, on why one should just adjust to the new ice age.
There were several movies about Planet of the Apes during that period so by the same
logic the consensus was that humanity was going to be enslaved by apes.
What you are missing is that the books of the time tap into the fears of the time. Fears of the Coming ice age (Creed) and fears of the failings of human nature (Apes is not just a great sci-fi story, it’s a commentary on mankind). Not many (or any at all) books of the time tap into the fear of a warming world, now why do you think that is? could it be that it wasn’t an issue that the public was being bombarded with by the consensus of the day, where as the coming ice age was?
How dare you use logic to learn the woke such as Percy!
There is not now and there has never been a consensus regarding climate. Scientists have never registered and then voted on climate related conjectures. But if there were such a consensus, it would be meaningless because science is not a democracy. Scientific theories are not validated through a voting process. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Popularity contests have no place in science. The idea of consensus is politics and not science.
You are mostly correct William. Science is like living in a Condo, with a bunch of dorks on the condo strata council all beating their chests. Similar to democracy, I am sorry to say. If you are real lucky, you get a normal condo & board, but that would be the exception. But nothing better has shown up regarding democracy. Some days I give up on science, but in the end, it always self corrects to facts. I hope. But probably never for condo’s.
Yes, therefore we need no ‘failed’ consensus to ‘prove’ that it has no meaning.
“however, this review found 19 additional papers in that journal”
I see what is happening here. PCF08 were looking for “imminent cooling” which is what Ice Age scare means. “that journal” Quaternary Research is a paleo/geo journal that looks at the history of glacial times. Naturally they mention that interglacials don’t last forever, and the current one probably won’t either. That has been known and said for at least a century, but is not a “cooling scare”. So to take the first paper on that list, Wright et al:
“Estimates for the duration of the interglacials range from 10,000 to more than 30,000 yr, according to counts of the annually laminated sediments (organic varves).
The Holocene has already run a course of at least 10,000 yr. If it is like earlier interglacials, it will end soon, giving way to gradually developing cold conditions, which may not lead to glacial maxima for tens of thousands of years.”
Interglacials run from 10000 to 30000 years, and this one has already run 10000. That could have been said any time, including now. It is not a “cooling scare” paper.
Matthews et al in the same journal is another case in point. It studies the dynamics of past ice sheet growth, and says it happens rapidly when it starts. But there is no prediction that it is about to start.
Nick
Both budyko and lamb wrote technical books on the climate which confirmed the consensus was cooling. However several Years later they wrote that the cooling trend apparent since around 1940 was now reversing. The cut off date is very much around 1970 .
Like all good scientists they changed their minds when the facts changed. Looking at papers from the seventies will reflect the change from the cooling to warming consensus. Unfortunately the amount of climate papers being published in the 1940 to 1970 period was limited compared to the deluge of papers that accelerated during that latter decade
There was definitely a cooling trend within the 1940 to 1970 period. this is also reflected in the data that Hansen used, namely the Mitchell temperature curves and the data compiled by Callendar . In 1963 just before his death the very severe winter caused him to think his greenhouse theory was wrong. This is recorded in his archives
With respect by the time you became a research scientist there would have been little scientific talk of cooling
Tonyb
Nick
Both budyko and lamb wrote technical books on the climate which confirmed the consensus was cooling. However several Years later they wrote that the cooling trend apparent since around 1940 was now reversing. The cut off date is very much around 1970 .
The summary by H.H. Lamb in his book “Climatic
History and the Future”, is a more accurate statement of the scientific
viewpoint in the 70’s:
“It is to be noted here that there is no necessary contradiction between
forecast expectations of (a) some renewed (or continuation of) slight cooling of world climate for a few decades to come, e.g., from volcanic or solar activity variations: (b) an abrupt warming due to the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, lasting some centuries until fossil fuels are exhausted and a while thereafter; and this followed in turn by (c) a glaciation lasting (like the previous ones) for many thousands of years.”
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that you can come to whichever conclusion you wish by simply selecting a pliant database. Both used in this article seem woefully inadequate.
Of course, I refuse to believe the media in the 1970’s, en masse, were deliberately misrepresenting the scientific “consensus” of the time. At least not without extraordinary evidence, as should be the standard for all extraordinary claims.
So Skeptical Science cant get people to participate on their site, so they regurgitate here. I wounder if the guest blogger is the same person that posted on SKS???
https://www.skepticalscience.com/70s-cooling-myth-tricks-part-I.html
Angus McFarlane you should be ashamed of yourself for posting such rubbish.
As an chemical engineer I remember my conversations with an older climatologist working at NASA, Houston in 1974. He was explaning that there weren’t many professional climatologists, but among the profession, there was a leaning consensus that the world was approaching a cooling phase. However he said, that trends were hard to distinguish and it may take 1000 yrs to discern a trend. He did not think that 100 yrs was not long enough. I was in my mid-twenties at the time and that conversation had a distinct impact on me. He was in his mid sixties at the time and was quite learned.
I’m 68, and I remember both Time issues, I was a subscriber. I still have copies. I always save the good ones and keep them at the cottage…I’m the only one in the family interested in the science stuff. It’s my observation people, generally, are not interested in theoretical physics as it applies to the atmosphere and its CO2 portion.
The ice age scare (just like the warming scare) was nonsense. The required methodology confirms this. A theory, to be scientific, must be falsifiable. In other words, the capacity to be proven wrong. That capacity is an essential component of the scientific method.
The AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) debate, like any, concerns what is and isn’t known. Knowledge trumps pedigree, you either understand the uncertainties surrounding the CO2 molecule’s resonance in the far infrared and its temperature influence or you don’t.
The alarmist’s position of emissions CO2 causing large climate change assumes high sensitivity. And as we all know, or should know, the climate’s sensitivity to the small anthropogenic portion of a radiatively active trace gas (CO2) has not been determined. Estimates (which cannot be confused with measurements) vary significantly, from next to zero to the IPCC range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C. per CO2 atmospheric doubling (540ppm) from ice core calculated pre-industrial levels (270ppm)
The boundaries of natural variability need to be well understood before one can make any claim on causality between CO2 and climate, sea levels, ice volume etc. For any of the man-made global warming claims to have validity the unnatural must be disentangled from the natural. So far the dangerous man-made climate effects exist only in the fervid imaginations of the alarmist advocates within the academic climate science field.
This problem is quite apparent with the climate models and their inability to get global warming right. As the IPCC has confirmed, a 97% failure rate for the period since 1998, “111 of the 114 available climate-model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations”. (IPCC Synthesis report 2014, p 43).
The climate change issue one of optics as opposed to reality. Like religions, climate change offers damnation or salvation, but only in the future and without supporting evidence. Like religions, climate change also depends both on the authority of and the peer pressure from a popular consensus. And for politicians the money from a carbon tax/cap and trade system is just too much to resist.
Although the scientific support for Catastrophic AGW is nonexistent, the idea is strong. To quote Rupert Darwall:…“Global warming’s success in colonising the Western mind and in changing government policies has no precedent.”
Eventually, within this century, the man-made global warming conjecture will find itself alongside all the other hobgoblins that have come and gone.
M.W.Plia
“As the IPCC has confirmed, a 97% failure rate for the period since 1998, ‘111 of the 114 available climate-model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations’”.
Because this is so striking, from a scientific perspective it is not a failure, but an opportunity. It evokes questions: Was there something that happened to dampen the expected trend? Is there a systematic error shared by virtually all models, and if so, what is it?
Scientists can also look at what has happened since 2014 and ask, “Have the temperatures rebounded to the expected trend?” in order to shed light on whether it was a model error or a function of natural variability in climate. There is some indication that temperatures are again becoming more in line with predictions, but it will take a few more years to see if this is the case.
Models are not perfect. They are getting better, more able to simulate regional change. It will be interesting to see what the next wave brings. In any case, the fact that the models are imperfect doesn’t mean AGW is wrong.
Personally, I think it’s pretty extraordinary that they are even able to simulate current climate without tuning to it, or to have things like cyclones appear as an emergent property.
” Cook et al (2103) ”
Was that, perhaps, 2013?
I remember the 1970’s well – I was becoming a read-aholic and I remember very well story after story about the troubling global cooling trend. By about 1975 they had just about everyone convinced there was an ice age headed out way. It was all over the news. (and it IS headed our way, sometime within the next few thousands years or less).
I don’t need an analysis, I lived through it. Its kind of like someone analyzing temperatures and rainfall and then telling my Grandfather (now deceased) that the 1930’s dust-bowl had never happened… He kind of knew that it did – he was the one living it. Just as I kind of know about the Global Cooling scare or the 1970’s – but luckily I only lived through the scare…the ice age is still coming…someday.
How would you classify an appearance in a respected encyclopedia yearbook? The 1976 Compton Yearbook (Compton was owned by the Encyclopedia Britannica people at the time and shares the same editors) includes piece by the NY Times science writer. Is it popular press, or is it “academic” when it is in an encyclopedia? Interesting question. I probably have images of it if you want them. I bought that yearbook for entirely different reasons, and just happened to notice the other article. I want to say. . . . Walter Sullivan? Something like “Climate: Shaper of Civilizations”?
This article is so ripe for plucking that it smells like misinformation. Why put up such weak arguments if they can be shot down easily by just reading a few of the papers? It is plain silly to defend something simply because and only because it confirms your own beliefs.
Maybe global cooling was the consensus but the premises presented here don’t imply that conclusion.
That 1977 Time cover with the penguin, is a well known fake based on a 2007 cover; you can view them all online!* I would hazard a guess that it might be important to check the provenance of an image if you are going to write about myth making!
Perhaps the author should have used the “Big Freeze” cover of 1977, though also misleading, it does have the virtue of being real!
http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1977/1101770131_400.jpg
If it was an intentional use, then it is very poor editorial form because you are giving mixed messages about the intentions of your piece.
It is painful to have watch Nick Stokes punching through this wet paper bag of a post with less than supernatural ease!
Seem’s like he’s the only one bothering to read the material.
I don’t care for arguments about something so nebulous as “consensus belief” particularly when the basic premise appears to be in doubt.**
**Was it 93% or 97% (It is 97.1 or 97.2 in the Cook’s book)
*http://time.com/vault/year/1977/
Nicks first argument was pathetic; a willfully omission of the words ” at least…” which “punching through this wet paper bag of his post” completely countered his assertion.
The post is a rebuttal to a typical fraudulent article created by warmists which used cherry-picked articles to prove a falsehood.
What ‘premise’ do you think is incorrect?
Everyone who was alive in the 70s (myself included) can remember the global cooling scare. I was baffled a few years ago when warmists decided to start saying “that never happened”. I remember it well. I was young and the idea was very frightening to me.
One reason Communists don’t want young people to talk to old people is because it messes with their ability to take over. Older people know things, and can warn young people about them; so it becomes vital to keep the generations apart. No one of millennial generation or younger can remember the global cooling scare, and they rely heavily on internet sourced “knowledge”, so make them hate everyone over 40 and scrub the internet, problem solved!
Engineer colleagues of mine who worked for oil companies in the 70s, were busy designing ice breaking oil tankers to bring oil from the Middle East to Rotterdam, London and New York – so sure were their employers that a (so-called) Nuclear winter was on its way. Global cooling caused by nuclear testing – as believed by CND marchers everywhere, it was as now, ‘all our fault’.
“Global cooling caused by nuclear testing”
70’s? The Nuclar Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963, and observed by the major powers.
You lived in the 70s, no doubt, but you must have rarely read newspapers or glanced at magazines, because the nuclear scare and nuclear winter scare were HUGE and omnipresent…
Indeed. The nuclear scare was still a big deal in the 1970s. Just because there was a treaty to ban testing didn’t make the nuclear arsenals of the superpower disappear.
If the test ban ended the fears of Nuclear weapons/Nuclear winter, why did the SALT treaty need to be signed in 1972, a decade after the test ban treaty? The fear of Nuclear winter was very much still around in the 1970s and into the early part of the 1980s.
The claim was a fear of nuclear winter caused by nuclear testing, which caused oil companies to want to develop ice-breakers for use in Europe. And I pointed out that most atmospheric testing ceased in 1963. Of course fear of nuclear war persisted.
No, the claim was that it was fear of nuclear winter full stop that the oil companies were worried about (I quote “so sure were their employers that a (so-called) Nuclear winter was on its way.” notice the period and lack of mention of Nuclear tests in the sentence associated with oil companies). The bit about Nuclear testing was something “CND marchers” supposedly believed (as noted in the sentence *after* the one about oil companies).
“No, the claim was that it was fear of nuclear winter full stop “
Howard Dewhirst’s claim was explicitly:
“Global cooling caused by nuclear testing”
Yes, he was also explicit about who that applied to “as believed by CND marchers everywhere” Are oil companies CND marchers? no they are not.
And see this is the tell for folks like Nick. The typical statists who trust government when his lying eyes tell the exact opposite story, ad nauseum.
Sure Nick, it was safe to breathe the air at ground zero days after 911 because the head of EPA said so….
Sure Nick, the government should have over 20 million classified documents each year, hmm that really speaks of honesty.
Sure, Obama had the most transparent presidency ever….
Sure, they dropped bin laden body in the ocean because… Reasons.
Sure, the bay of Tonkin was legit…
For an old man you have the intuition and scepticism of a toddler. Santa is real to some humans as well, mostly toddlers
How about a bit of history as I remember it all so well in school.
I remember the impending ice age scare very well and why.
I’m understandably sensitive to any whiff of manipulation.
I’ve seen it all at least 4 times before.
Here is some interesting stuff:-
“Sir Crispin Tickell, our man at the UN…..In the 1970s, had written a book warning that the world was cooling…..
…but he had since become an ardent convert to the belief that it was warming…followed by his sidekick at the UK met office, -Prof, Dr or whatever the soon to be knighted John Houghton.
and the debate to be.-
…turbocharged by the largely conservative dominated BBC and press who had problems with the unions in restructuring the printed media to use new technology…(eg, the famous TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES dispute).
Margaret Thatcher marched into this mess in the first place, manipulated it all and we are still paying the price.
first, it was global cooling while she was out of power,-
– Under the labour governments of the 60s and 70s, it fitted very well with the “consensus” that BIG DIRTY COAL and the unions were to blame for the UK political disaster of the time with some politicians like FOOT now known to have been in hock to the Kremlin.
Margaret astutely steered the debate away using as ammunition the lefty nuclear disarmament/nuclear winter debates , misinformed the British public away from coal & their wonderful conman Scargill.
All you needed was a good attention seeker, + a country in serious industrial decline and an agenda seeking personality.
She fitted the role perfectly thanks to the previous labour governments, nationalised industries…and their ham fisted approach to just about everything.
…pushed the “we’re about to freeze” agenda…so we have to have secure oil and gas, not that dirty coal with strikes every 5 minutes!
So from 1980-1990 she could go for her union bashing future, replacing it with oil, gas, and her city of London banker friends to launder the north sea cash bonanza to keep her sacred Tory party in power for ever. She nearly managed that feat, (helped along by the equally ham fisted Argentinians).
The resultant wanton wholesale destruction of the coal and NPP plus steel industries, followed, true to her agenda, thereby neutering the unions for ever.
After this, when she had got securely into power for a decade, Thatcher changed sides
(Also intelligently maintaining there was masses of cheap oil under the Falkland islands btw….),-
OIL fed her sleezy Tory party spin doctors,propelling the city of London and their “too big to fail bankers” to unimagined power, on the back of cheap north sea oil, so they could get a future strangle hold on the entire UK economy.
So,-
She held a press conference upon the release of the first IPCC assessment (1990) and warned that “greenhouse gases … will warm the Earth’s surface with serious consequences for us all.”
…good old demagogery at work:-
https://youtu.be/Fys5Z63xCvA
So,-
Margaret “founded the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research and gave early direction to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to elevate the issue at home and abroad.
In her dotage once out of power, she changed sides yet again.
Nobody reports this of course in the same “independent media” that she rewarded with vast wads of cash and influence….cos by this time she was discredited.
There’s a good summary here:-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7823477/Was-Margaret-Thatcher-the-first-climate-sceptic.html
“in 2003, she backtracked on her climate advocacy, calling climate activism a “marvelous excuse for supra-national socialism,” and denouncing Al Gore’s calls for international cooperation around climate change “apocalyptic hyperbole.”
In her 2003 book Statecraft* she wrote of “a new dogma about climate change has swept through the left-of-center governing classes,” …bemoaned the “costly and economically damaging” schemes to limit carbon emissions.”
*“Government interventions are problematic, so intervene only when the case is fully proven.”
– Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World.
It’s easy to write your memoirs isn’t it, when the damage is done.
Thatcher proved one thing with her life.
Money, power, influence, the inherent unwritten nepotistic nexus of British politics , the BBC and the media.
(If you don’t believe me look at how Cameron saved his “BBQ and sausages”editor of the News of the World from going to prison).
Brexit? What was that about?
The British (especially Thatcher) were angry at losing their monopoly on this nexus of nepotism to Brussels and want it repatriated.
Thatcher tried and lost, because by this time the city had got drunk with money and their own influence…
In 2016, the British want to feel reassured in a world where they have little role left, after burning up all the oil and gas.
Now all we need is a genuine colder climate.
There’s no coal, no oil, no gas and no NPP engineers left.
Good luck to them!
My article is based on peer-reviewed papers that were included in and/or missed by PCF-08.
If you disagree with my classification of individual papers then please do so as Nick Stokes has done – the occasional disagreement in classification does not alter the overall premise that 1970s global climate cooling consensus was real.
However, blanket statements that my article is rubbish are not helpful because you are basically saying that the peer-reviewed literature is rubbish.
“the occasional disagreement in classification”
Every one I have looked at is wrong. Why don’t you nominate one paper where you think PCF08 wrongly classified or omitted, and defend it in detail?
Everyone you looked at you *claimed* is wrong. Not the same thing as it actually *being* wrong.
“the occasional disagreement in classification does not alter the overall premise that 1970s global climate cooling consensus was real.”
Did you get that, Nick? How many classifications have you disputed, half a dozen out of hundreds? Read the above quote again.
“half a dozen out of hundreds?”
How many have you affirmed? I can’t see that anyone else has looked at a single classification. All we have here is a list of Angus’ opinions – no justification or argument of each case. Every single case I have looked at where he disputes PCF08 is wrong. Even the one or two cases that he features here, and does give an argument for, make no sense.
This is the Kenneth Richard technique, a blizzard of nonsense. You demonstrate a few – O, but there are so many more!
Nick you are angering me here because it was all over the newspapers, books and on TV too. There was a lot of talk about the apparent cooling and some talk about a possible ice age coming on. I lived though it with growing interest as a teenager reading about it, read the book, The COOLING by Lowell Ponte, that covered a lot of research of that time.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/02/the-1970s-global-cooling-alarmism.html
Here is a good sample of what was being reported on in the 1970’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=ZtyM9mPbMUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhoB-Vf0N08
Several prominent scientists of the day stated these words:
“The ice age is due now anytime” – Professor George Kukla, Columbia University, 1974
“Professor Hubert Lamb says that a new ice age is creeping over the northern hemisphere.”
– ‘The Most Trusted Man in America’, Peabody Award Winner Walter Cronkite, 1972
The scientific community acknowledged the cooling alarmism of the 1970s in the scientific literature.
“Expert judgment and climate forecasting: A methodological critique of “climate change to the year 2000”
Climatic Change, Volume 7, Issue 2, pp. 159–183, June 1985
– Thomas R. Stewart, Michael H. Glantz
“One could effectively argue that in the early 1970s the prevailing view was that the earth was moving toward a new ice age. Many articles appeared in the scien-tific literature as well as in the popular press speculating about the impact on agriculture of a 1-2 “C cooling.” – Climatic Change, 1985″
Stephen Schneider was all about Cooling back in the 1970’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsdWTBNyvX0
There are many more on this to be read if you stop being a Connolly Clone.
Stop LYING about it, Nick!
He can’t stop lying, it would require him to re-evaluate his allegiance to the cult of CAGW
If you haven’t noticed, this whole discussion is about actually quantifying the support in published science for long term global cooling.
But you’d abandon that because of what you read or saw on the tele, and how it made you feel at the time.
That’s abandoning science in favor of anecdotes.
In other words ignore your lying eyes and believe the false narrative that the alarmists are feeding you. You can bury your head in the sand and believe that the past didn’t happen, those of us who lived it know better.
The ice on the Hudson Bay has accelerated as a result of the current circulation.
http://masie_web.apps.nsidc.org/pub/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r10_Hudson_Bay_ts_4km.png
I have a copy of “Report of a committee on climatic change” by the Australian Academy of science.
Report number 21 March 1976.
“The main body of the report comprises a summary and six chapters.
Chapter 1 examines the overseas reports which led to the request for the establishment of the committee.
There follow two chapters providing short, simple accounts of the mechanisms of climatic change, and mans possible influences on global climate”.
Page 9 says “Conclusions and Recommendations.
We conclude that there is no evidence that the world is now on the brink of a major climatic change.
There is ample evidence that the world’s climate has changed widely during the geological past, and while there is every expectation that it will continue to change in the future.
In 1969 I had just completed my first degree in Physics and the undergraduate small talk in the cafes was global cooling, the Vietnam war and Bob Dylan music.
Its pretty irritating that the Nick Stokes of this world would try to convince you that your memory is false.
What Nick & Co need to set up are Pol-Pot type re-education camps so we can replace our faulty memories with corrected memories.
Nick & Co aren’t trying to convince you that your memory is false. They know that your memory is true (even though they’ll never publicly admit it). It’s the younger generations they are trying to convince because the truth about the 1970s “consensus” is inconvenient to the snake-oil they’ve been selling
Well I’m the younger generation as are my friends. We’re all vastly more read on the topic of climate (albeit not scientists but years worth of study compared to the average news parrot).
You can be assured we aren’t falling for his sophistry, but rather laughing at him for his disappointingly naive religiosity
Yeah, cause we all know that your memory of what you heard and how you felt about it at the time trumps a thorough look at what scientists were actually publishing!
Not very skeptical scientific thinking.
Philip, was that directed at me? I am 35. My close friends and I have thousands of hours invested in the topic, and all three of us came to the same CONSENSUS :P…
CAGW isn’t real, it is a massive hoax predicated on global wealth redistribution and eugenics. For folks like you, I’m assuming, who cling to bad science (hide the decline, Phil jones talking about making up ocean temps and deliberately choosing .15C to offset the warming blip, adjustments downwards in the past, fake tree ring proxy data, bullying, countless international bureacrats talking openly about this being wealth redistribution and a forced plan to forsake capitalism, and on and on and on), there are those of us smart enough to have PERSPECTIVE. You know, that funny little thing that looks at all the players and landscape?
Something you clearly do not have, because you place your faith in liars, much to your folly.
Lol, it’s funny how the most politically and ideologically obsessed UKIP kind of people who spend most of their time ranting about politics and ideology at people to who do and talk about science, also spend the most time complaining about how political the scientists they whinge at are.
y’all do know the picture of a ‘Time’ cover showing on the link to this is a fake?
http://science.time.com/2013/06/06/sorry-a-time-magazine-cover-did-not-predict-a-coming-ice-age/
Please remove it!
I’m afraid that WUWT is much better at running articles condemning others for a lack of corrections, or late corrections, or corrections that aren’t given prominence, than it is at making corrections, doing them quickly and giving them prominence.
We have a very large cooling in North America during the solar minimum.
The meteorological winter starts on December 1.